Sense of Direction
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: There’s a line. They call it The Friends Line. Tony and Ziva face the ultimate challenge: is it possible to live together, raise your child together, and be a family...without falling in love? Tiva.
1. Chemically Inconvenienced

**Okay guys, this is my new Tiva fic. I was going to wait until I'd finished My Girl, but that's still got a long way to go so I'm posting this now. Basically, we're looking at another story like My Girl, particularly in length (hope you don't mind), although we're not focusing as much on tiva relationship in this one. It's going to have the same push and pull (which is what I love writing best for them) but with a focus on a deeper friendship that we don't get to see in the show...and a tiva baby, of course. So, let me know what you think! I'm really excited about this one, I've had it planned and in progress for a long time, god bless Alex E. Andras, who has had to put up with my incessant ideas and possibilities...and bless her even more for providing me with pen, paper and coffee for the first time this ever got written down as a possibility...and then encouraging me to write a three page piece that will end up further in the story. Thanks!**

Chapter One: Prologue

_There's a line. They call it The Friends Line. It's a different sort of line to the others you get given in live. It's not the sort of one that your parents put in place - like there'll be no fun if you do something bad - because it's not one that you're tempted to cross just to see what happens when you go too far. It's a much more complicated line, and unfortunately, it's permanent. You know what will happen when you cross it, which is why you don't do it. You know that when you get your fun taken away for breaking the rules you'll get the fun back when the punishment is over. It's not like that with The Friends Line. The only problem is, you don't always know that the line is there until you get so far past it that it's too late to go back to before the line was there. Because the line is always there. So, you end up stuck where you are…you, the person you love, and The Friends Line that keeps you separated in the worst possible place._

_Have you ever been so close to a persons lips that you can't imagine how small the gap is? Hovering just in place, right about to kiss them? So close that you can hear and feel every shuddering, expectant breath? Have you ever been so close that it's painful just to be near them, even though you wouldn't want to be a mere millimetre from their side? The sort of closeness that could only get closer if you were one complete person and not just two beings in the brink of the most amazing romance? The sort that takes your breath away and leaves you longing for more?_

_If you've felt that, and you've known in that moment that no force on earth can bring you to lean into the miniscule space between you and actually kiss the one you love, then you've become a victim of The Friends Line._

_You see, The Friends Line is what stops you from kissing the love of your live, even when they're standing right before you, just waiting for you to take charge and seize the moment. It's what stops you putting your arm around them when you watch a film together, even though you know how easy the classic 'yawn and snuggle' technique is. It's what makes you look away after you finally get the meaningful eye contact; the sort you get when you've been laughing and then nothing's all that funny anymore because all you can do is look at each other…both to scared to move forward any more. It's what stops you holding hands when you walk down the road, what makes you hold back on the hugs until they walk into your arms, and what stops you kissing them when you see the slightest self doubt in their eyes._

_But the worst trick of The Friends Line is the one that stays with you all the time. See, all the other manipulations appear when the moment is right, like when you get the eye contact or when you're sitting beside each other. The worst one can't compare to these. It's the one that never leaves you, the one that's there even when the one you love isn't._

_It's the voice in the back of your head. The one that says "it's your best friend" whenever you look at them or think about them. That's the killer. As soon as you've heard that voice, you know The Friends Line is firmly set in place. It's there, and it's there to stay. There's nothing you can do about it, and there's certainly no way of going back to how things were before. The Friends Line isn't a line you can erase because you can't see it. That's what makes it so confusing. And you can only know that when you're inches away from their lips, just about to follow through on the kiss you've been holding back for years, and there's really nothing there to stop you other than the voice in the back of your head…and that's always what stops you._

_So, you go on being the best friends you've always been, trying to fool yourself into believing that you can be content with this. You sit beside them and comfort them when every person they meet screws them over, even though you know that you could never hurt them the way the rest of the world could. You walk down the road together but you keep your hands in your pockets so that the temptation to hold their hand doesn't even present itself. You do the normal things, things that mean the most because they're little and insignificant, things that don't need any thought to them, and that's okay. It's okay, right up until you realise that these things are what relationships should be built on - the little things - things that mean nothing to everyone else but everything to the two of you…the same things that you have to convince yourself day in and day out don't really mean anything, even though they do. _

_When you've reached this point, all that's left to do is look back on all you've been through together, and ask the question that every best friend asks once in a while._

_How close can you get to breaking The Friends Line before it breaks you?_

--------

Her eyes opened as soon as the smell of early morning floated through the open window, her instincts making her ridiculously alert despite the onset of a hangover hitting her with the mere movement of her eyes. What had she been drinking last night? And how much? Surely it wasn't enough to deserve a hangover like this. She had a second heartbeat in her head, either that or her brain was on the verge of exploding, but death seemed like a good option right now. She tried to get up and look around the room, but her eyes were protesting about having to focus on something, so it had just keep the room spinning. Her mouth felt dry, as if her body had lost the ability to generate saliva, and her tongue, which felt twice as big as she remembered it to bed, was suffocating her. She would have been tempted to cry, but aside from it being against everything she stood for, it would have used to last of the moisture left in her entire body. Talking wasn't an option. In fact, all she could manage to do was breathe…very gently. She didn't have to get up right away. Her cell phone wasn't ringing, neither was her alarm clock, all that was ringing was her ears. She could just sleep until some ringing with a shut off button interrupted her peace. She rolled on her side, ignoring the nausea that came with her movement, and tried to fall back asleep.

-----------

He stood in his kitchen, nursing the familiar starts of a hangover. He hadn't been as drunk as he had been some times, particularly with recent events and guilt making him all too familiar with the churning stomach both the night before and the morning after. However, whilst on previous nights he'd been so drunk that he barely remembered being in his own him, he remembered exactly what happened last night, and with whom, and was now unable to shake the feeling of hatred he had for himself. He had a slight headache, and although he didn't feel all that sick, something was definitely amiss. He might have looked no different from slightly tired when he glanced into the bathroom mirror that morning, but his usual attention span had dropped to that rivalling an office stapler, which explained the three piles of unsuccessful burnt toast on a plate beside him. The coffee he was drinking in extreme amounts to try and stay focused was only spurring on his hunger which, for some reason, was craving a full fried breakfast.

He wished that he had work today. Even though he wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and silently curse himself as the sun burned into his corneas and reminded him of the reason why he couldn't go back to bed. No, his bed was occupied, albeit by one less person than it had been an hour ago. If he'd had to go to work, he'd be able to have a shower, throw on some clothes, and escape the awkwardness of the situation he'd landed himself in. Instead, it was a weekend, and he'd have to sit around waiting for her to wake up so that they could have the inevitable talk where they both agreed that this was a mistake, that it wouldn't change things, and then go on with their lives with lots of knowing looks of shame that would almost certainly change everything.

He was lying on the couch with a pillow underneath his head when his guest finally ventured out of his bedroom. He had to admit, there was something other than the obvious that made him wonder whether he should dare say good morning to her or whether he should hide behind some life-saving barrier. Her eyes were unfocused, almost glassy with confusion. Her hair was wild, sticking up in various directions and taking on the appearance of a mane as her usual curls started to spring back into life. The coloured tinge on her cheeks wasn't one of good health, but rather of too much tequila on a too empty stomach. She looked like she shouldn't even have gotten out of bed.

She looked around her, taking in the room slowly as he watched her, waiting for her reaction. "This is not my apartment," she stated simply after a few minutes.

"No, it's mine," he murmured back.

"What happened last night?"

That was a good question.


	2. Accidentally Horizontal

**Chapter Two**

The next time Ziva felt aware of herself, she found herself basked in the comfort of the bed she had woken up in; the bed that wasn't hers. Despite the comfort that the cotton sheets offered she still felt like death warmed over, if possible, worse than she did before. She turned her face into the pillow, attempting to rid herself of the feeling, but it was to no avail. The familiar musky scent filled her senses, dragging thoughts, no, memories, freshly back into the front of her mind - tangled bodies, enamoured moans, and indescribably good sex with somebody she really shouldn't have had indescribably good sex with in the first place, and this only added guilt to the mixture of feelings that were leaving her wishing for sleep that wouldn't come. She groaned as her head began to pound again, and a sudden freezing sensation became present on her forehead.

Trying to work out what it was that had been so cold, yet not caused her to shiver, she frowned a little, blearily opened her eyes. Everything started spinning again, and she closed her eyes once more, willing her vision to still slightly before she attempted moving again. It wasn't that she needed help remembering what the room looked like, because it was one she had the feeling she should never see again, but it would help if the presence beside her was explained by something more than a silent, colourful blur. The ache in her head increased, resembling a heartbeat once again, and the dull thudding matched her regular, but quick, breathing. After a few moments where her stomach didn't feel like exploding upwards, she tried opening her eyes again. The spinning was still there, but she fought past it, finding that everything became focused on the presence beside her.

"Welcome back," Tony whispered to her, replacing the damp cloth on her forehead now that she had stopped moving around. Ah, she realised, so that's where the cold came from.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice matching his whisper, though she was unsure of the need to be so quiet.

"You passed out," he explained, looking down at her. No matter how disorientated she was, she couldn't miss the concern in his eyes, and it flooded back more memories of the night before, mainly ones of locked eyes and the various devoted expressions she'd seen in his intoxicated brown orbs. Concern wasn't something she'd seen last night, however. There was attraction, lots of attraction, and fleeting looks of disbelief and amazement in between those, but never concern. "How do you feel?"

"I am never drinking again," she offered as an answer.

Tony gave her a weak smile, knowing that this was one of those things she'd said hundreds of mornings, just like he'd done himself, and it was a promise that would be completely forgotten by the following . "Yeah, I'm thinking of doing the same," he agreed. She groaned in response, resisting the temptation to bury her face in the pillow again, but she knew it would only make the pillow wet if the cloth got pressed against it. "Hangovers suck," he said lightly, in a voice that suggested he was merely attempting to make conversation and get some answers that weren't irritable, sick groans. "Especially on the one day we get to enjoy before another week of work."

"At least hangovers usually disappear by midday," Ziva said quietly, a hope that she'd spent many mornings clinging to.

Tony frowned at her, glancing down at the watch he was wearing. "Ziva, it's three in the afternoon," he told her.

"What?" she asked, sitting up in shock but quickly regretting the action. She fell forwards with the motion and came into contact with something hard, but soft at the same time. The way a pair of arms enclosed around her almost immediately told her that it was Tony's shoulder.

"Hey, hey, just take it easy, okay?" he said softly, keeping her supported for a moment as she raised her head, her hands landing on his shoulders for support. She only allowed herself this support for a few seconds before she placed her hands down in her lap, letting herself sway for a moment before successfully remaining upright. "Better?" he checked.

"Yes," she mumbled, shutting her eyes against the nausea.

They were silent for a while. Tony remained where he was, too afraid to move the hand on her upper arm in case it alerted her to the fact it was there in the first place, and he suspected she wasn't just keeping still near him for the sake of nausea. He wondered whether the touch of skin on skin was bringing back the same heated flashbacks for her as it was for him. Sometime in the night before, he couldn't say what time it was for the life of him thanks to a mixture of alcohol and frenzied needs, he'd sat in the same place, holding her in the same way he was holding her now, tracing his fingertips along the bare skin of her arms, making sure that he took his time and tortured her until he'd heard sounds he couldn't possibly imagine he'd ever hear from his partner. Remembering this, he had the temptation to move his fingers in the same way again, to gently drag them across her arms to see if it elicited the same reaction now, but the mere fact that he wanted to caused him to drop his hand from where it rested. This was his partner, what was he thinking?

"So, uh…if you want to take a shower or anything, you can," he told her, suddenly looking at any other part of the room to avoid her gaze. Unfortunately many part of his bedroom held memories that kept flashing before his eyes - the lamp that had been knocked off the bedside table, the top bedclothes which had been thrown and forgotten, even a few buttons from the shirt he'd worn last night that Ziva had deemed insignificant at the time they'd been ripped from the fabric and wound up dug deep inside the carpet fibres. "Or if you want some food it's in the kitchen, of course. Where else would it be? Can't keep food anywhere else in the house…"

"Tony," she mumbled, trying to stop the familiar barrage of rambling that came from his mouth whenever he was nervous.

"…not that this house isn't fit to store food, because I actually do my own cleaning since the maid went back to Spain and I think I'm doing an okay job of it…"

"Tony," she tried again.

"…still haven't had the guts to clean the oven yet, though. She always looked like she was feeding a dragon when she did that…"

"Tony!" she snapped, a little harsher than she should have done, but aside from the obvious sign that he was trying to avoid an inevitable conversation, his rambling wasn't helping her headache any. "Sorry," she whispered, when the room was silent again. "You wander worse than Abby, sometimes."

"Ramble," he corrected her. "And yeah, I guess I do."

"Only when you are nervous, yes?"

"Nervous?" he laughed off. "I don't have anything to be nervous about."

She raised an eyebrow, which was hard with a sluggish body and probably looked more like a wince. "Other than the conversation we need to have now?" she asked him.

The laugh wore off very quickly at that. "We don't need to have a conversation…" he trailed off, hardly able to convince himself of that matter. He knew that it was coming, but he wanted to delay it for as long as possible, until at least he could figure out how they had allowed this to happen - a reason other than the obvious 'we were drunk'. Unfortunately that was the only reason his hung over mind was present himself with.

"Yes," she corrected him, watching as in his absence of an answer he began to shake his head slowly. "You know that we need to speak about this."

"What is it that you want me to say?" he asked, just to see if she had any more idea about how to deal with this than he did. After all, it wasn't like he did this often. Sleeping with girls, yes, but not girls who were his best friend.

"The truth," she said instantly. "I want to know what you are thinking about this," she elaborated at his confused expression.

He sighed, with a hint of irony in his huff. "To be honest, Ziva, I'm trying to remember what I was thinking last night."

"We were not thinking clearly," she agreed.

"We weren't thinking at all," he corrected her a little sharply.

"Tony-"

"If we'd been thinking, we wouldn't have done this," he pointed out.

"How did this even happen?" Ziva asked, struggling to remember through her headache. "How did it come to this?"

Tony rubbed at his forehead, the hangover fog blocking most of the evening from his mind. "Damn hangover," he grumbled to himself, before he pushed through the fog and began to reclaim some of his memories. "Uh…we were at Abby's house. Party."

Ziva nodded, that made sense. A party at Abby's would certainly involve alcohol, especially seeing as it was - "her birthday," she added. "We went to a club after."

Oh yeah, the club. He remembered that. He also remembered- "we were dancing."

"Together."

"All night."

"Abby was buying us drinks," she recalled.

"Correction, Abby was buying us shots," he told her, putting an emphasis on the word that suddenly presented the biggest explanation for most of the nights antics.

Ziva grimaced. "I no longer feel as passionate about tequila as I did last night," she admitted, as the ever present nausea reminded her that it was not looking to fade any time soon.

Tony shut his eyes tightly, shaking his aching head for a moment. "Please, don't say the word 'passionate'," he grumbled. "It's bringing back some pretty graphic memories of us last night," he explained. Yes, some very pleasing memories of bare skin on bare skin, lips clashing, tongues colliding, fighting for domination…

Ziva's heavy sigh interrupted his fantasies. "Could we please have this conversation without you thinking about sex?" she asked tiredly.

"Considering we're talking about sex, no, I have to think about it," he explained simply. "It's impossible not to."

"Can you at least look at this seriously for a moment?" she asked instead, rubbing at her temples.

He sighed. "Look, Ziva, we slept together." Stating the obvious usually helped, right? "We were drunk, we were looking for a good time, we made…"

"A mistake, yes?" she finished for him. "You think this was a mistake?"

He looked around at the scattered items of clothing - her clothing - littering his bedroom floor. "Not for the reasons you're thinking," he said softly.

But she seemed too outraged for his reason to be able to hear what he'd said afterwards. "You think that you made a mistake in sleeping with me?" she repeated. "Was it bad? Unsatisfying?"

"No!" he assured her quickly. "God, no, I just….Ziva, we're partners, friends…"

Understanding dawned on her. "Oh, I see," she said gentle, removing herself from under the blankets and standing up. Tony frowned, but didn't really see what she was doing until he watched her pull on her jeans and head towards the closed bedroom door.

"Ziva, wait-"

She turned to face him for a moment, but then turned back to the door so that she wouldn't have to see the disappointed look in his eyes, the look that would prove this had ruined everything. She heard him get up from the bed and follow her over, but she didn't turn to look at him. "Wait for what?" she asked, her voice slightly bitter just to disguise the hurt in her own tone. "For you to tell me that this was a mistake…and that it meant nothing and that we should forget about it? Let me sake you the trouble, Tony." She shook her head slowly, her hand closing on the door handle and pulling it towards her. "This was a mistake. It meant nothing, and we should forget it ever happened."

"It meant something!" he cried out, grabbing hold of her wrist as she tried to leave the room. He pulled her back to him, not forcefully, but he kept his hand on hers as she stood before him. She avoided his eyes still, instead focusing on a spot over his shoulder. "It meant something," he repeated, quieter this time. "It meant…it meant a lot, and I don't want to forget about it. But I can't…you're my best friend, Ziva," he told her softly. Her eyes flickered to his, remaining with him as he continued. "I mean it. I have friends and family, but you? You're close than that. And I can't go through with anything that might compromise that. You're my best friend, and if…some risks I just can't take, not when it means I risk losing you," he told her.

She stared at him for a moment. She understood the risks he spoke of - he wasn't the poster boy for commitment after all. She would like to think that if anything came of this night he would be faithful and want to stay with her, but there would always be the fear of normality sinking in and his easily tempted mind and body straying, no matter what feelings were bared between them both. She sighed, her wrist falling limp in his hold, no longer fighting against him. "Tony, we took a risk last night," she pointed out.

"And I won't take another," he insisted firmly. "Can we just…well, not ignore it, but not let it affect us?" he half-begged. "Please, we're a good team in and out of the field…and I know better than anyone that sex just complicates things." Even amazingly good sex, he thought to himself.

She looked at him, and he tried not to pre-empt her reaction, but her eyes weren't working wonders with concealing her emotions at the moment. Either she was too distracted to hide her feelings on this matter from him, or she had accepted that it was useless to try and disguise things from somebody who now knew her so well. After a while, she looked away, sighed, but then she nodded, returning her eyes to his once more. "Yes," she whispered. "We are good friends."

He gave her an encouraging smile. "What do you say?" he suggested. "Can we do this?"

She held out her hand in a friendly gesture. "Best friends?"

He smirked, winding his arms around her and bringing her in close to his chest. The fact that she was wearing clothes made it possible for him to block out the memories of holding her this close and tight last night. "Best friends hug, Zi," he told her. She looked up from his shoulder, arching her eyebrow at him curiously. "Well, normal friends. I guess we're not all that normal now."

She looked into space thoughtfully. "An Italian fraternity whore turned NCIS agent and an Israeli Mossad liaison officer…yes, that seems very normal," she told him sarcastically.

He smiled at her sarcasm - after all, they had barely ever been normal, but that was what he liked about their friendship - unconventional, exciting…. "I'm glad this hasn't messed things up," he admitted, looking down into her eyes with his hands planted on her shoulders.

"It has not messed things up," she assured him. "But it has changed things."

He half-shrugged. "Don't worry. We'll be friends, and nothing will have to change," he assured her.

-------

Three weeks passed, and things didn't change, not at first anyway. They did, however, change quite rapidly when Tony found himself being pulled into the elevator quite swiftly by a pale, sickly Ziva one morning. It wasn't the sickness that changed things, though, because he knew she'd been sick for a while - to the point that she'd actually surrendered and gone for a doctors appointment. He'd offered to go with her, but she denied that anything was seriously wrong and gone alone. He would later find out that Abby had gone with her to the appointment, and that it was Abby who had encouraged her to go in the first place. He'd just been ready to ask her how it went when Ziva had grabbed his him into the elevator before Gibbs even noticed that he had arrived. But the sickness, the doctors appointment, the small scale elevator abduction…that didn't change things. What changed things was the words she spoke once the elevator doors were closed.

"Tony…I am pregnant."


	3. Can I Please Have My Fairy Tale Now?

**Previously on Sense of Direction:**

_The sickness, the doctors appointment, even the small scale abduction…that didn't change things. What changed things was the words she spoke once the elevator doors were closed._

"_Tony…I am pregnant."_

Chapter Three

The elevator was silent. So silent, that it was deafening. No, wait there was sound. Tony's ears were ringing. Either that, or his Gibbs Head Slap Alarm was going off with a fierce advanced warning. Oh yeah, he was getting slapped for this. Big time. There was no way he was getting off this easily. Ziva was pregnant. The woman standing before him was pregnant. His best friend was pregnant. Now, he could do what he wanted to do - stand here and threaten to hurt, maim and dismember the guy who had done this to her - but he knew that there was a very real and very fear-inducing reason that she had grabbed him and pulled him into the elevator.

"It's mine," he realised softly.

"Yes," she nodded.

With just ten seconds, everything between them had changed. He'd fooled himself into believing that nothing between them had changed. After all, they'd managed to turn up to work every morning without alerting any of their friends to the fact that they'd stupidly stumbled into bed together. Even if it was an enlighteningly good night of passion, it was mistake to sleep with your best friend, right? That's what they'd told themselves, and it had worked. Nothing had changed.

But it had now.

"That's…that's why you've been sick," he realised.

"Yes," she repeated.

Then a flash of fear. "Abby-"

"Does not know you are the father," she assured him quickly. "She knows I am pregnant, she does not know the rest."

"Right," he mumbled, leaning back against the elevator wall with a sigh. He ran his hands over his face for a moment, trying to process the words that echoed around in his mind. There was no escaping them. He didn't know what to do, what to say…nothing. "How did this happen?" he mumbled.

She frowned, giving him an exasperated expression. "I think that is fairly obvious, Tony," she pointed out.

She leaned against the wall beside him. The elevator was plunged into silence again, filled only with the occasional sigh from Tony as he tried to find the words to say. Ziva chose to say nothing. She'd told him all she knew, sparing him the grisly details, of course. He knew that she'd been to the doctor and that she was pregnant, he didn't need to know the more intimate details of her examination, nor did he need to know the many things that Abby had questioned her about as they left the hospital.

"We can't talk about this here," he said suddenly, running his hand over his face and reaching for the button to restart the elevator.

She frowned. "Tony-"

He turned to her, putting his hands on her elbows. "Don't worry, we will talk about this, okay? I promise."

She laughed hollowly. "Yes, I know how this will go," she nodded. "You say we shall talk about this, and then we avoid this for as long as possible until Gibbs eventually notices. Then we shall be forced into speaking about this, and by that time many of our options will have been decided for us, yes?"

He gave her a slightly put-out look, as if he were insulted by her assumption. "No, actually," he told her.

"Then how is this going to go?" she asked him.

"Look, we stay in here for the amount of time it'll take to have a real talk about this, and Gibbs is going to get real suspicious," he pointed out. "When he finds about this, I'd like to be able to say something more than 'I don't know' to him."

"That still does not answer my question," she said simply.

"Tonight," he said, nodding his head. "Come over to my place, I'll cook dinner and we can have a proper conversation and figure everything out, yeah?"

She sighed, nodding. "Okay."

----

The day had been torturous. She had thought it was impossibly hard to sit across from him for most of the morning knowing that she was carrying his child, but it was much harder once they both knew, yet could not act on it or speak about it. They'd only been doing paperwork, but if anything that made it harder. She wished nothing more than to feel normal for the afternoon, to get out in the field and do her job, but instead she was stuck at her desk, trying to control the amount of times she needed to rush to the bathroom and attempting not to look too nauseated when McGee returned with their lunch.

She'd arrived at his house as planned, and they'd eaten a nearly silent dinner. After, they had curled up on the couch, both sitting cross legged, facing one another with their knees touching. Then, the talk began.

"I enjoyed it, you know?" Tony admitted first. She looked confused. "The night we spent together. I know that I shouldn't, and that it's wrong because we're just friends, but I did."

"It is not so wrong, I suppose," she agreed. "I enjoyed it also."

"Perhaps we enjoyed it a bit too much," he suggested.

"Fun is not without its consequences."

He sighed. "God, a baby."

She pulled her hair from the hairgrip, sending her curls spilling onto her shoulders as she ran her hands through it. "This is incredibly inconvenient," she murmured.

"Because of work?" he asked.

"Among other things," she confirmed.

He frowned. "What other things?"

She sighed, keeping silent for a moment, just long enough to show him how reluctant to give her answer. "My father," she told him simply.

"Oh."

"Exactly."

He didn't know quite what to say to that. Ziva's father was obviously an issue, a very traditional man whom Tony had only heard stories of, and they were the kind of stories that would keep grown adults up all night warily watching the dark corners in the room. "Well, I guess we should get the most important part out of the way. Do you want this baby?" he asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders ever so gently, looking down into her lap, where her fingers were playing with a loose, fraying thread. "It does not matter," she said, trying to sound indifferent. "My father will not allow me to raise a child who's father is not Jewish."

At this, Tony looked mildly horrified. "What, you think he'll try and take the baby away from you?"

She bit her lip, and then took a slow breath. "That would be the kindest possibility, yes," she whispered.

"That's ridiculous!" he cried. "Ziva, I wouldn't let him do anything like that."

She looked up at him, shaking her head. "Tony, I cannot afford to fall in love with a child who is going to be taken away from me," she said.

"It's not going to happen!" he insisted.

"You do not know my father," she pointed out.

"And you clearly don't know me very well if you think I'd let him take our kid away from us!" he shot back.

Our kid. Us. Very choice words that stilled her troubled mind just a little.

"Do you want this, Ziva?" he asked her again. "Don't give me crap about your father or anyone else. I'm asking _you_. Do _you _want this?"

"I have spent most of my life taking the lives of others," she told him. "To have this opportunity to give life, to a child of my own…"

"Our own," he corrected her.

She smiled lightly, and took his hands in her own. "Tony, do you wish to go through with this?" she asked him.

"Being a dad? I think it'll be awesome!" he grinned.

"Tony, this is not about having a miniature version of yourself," she pointed out. "This is going to change our lives dramatically…"

"Look, I know," he assured her. "I just…you want this, I can see you want this, and I want to be a part of it. I want to be able to provide for my child, I want to be there for my kid. We might not be in a relationship, but we can still do this together, right?" he checked.

She was silent for a long time again. He squeezed her hands reassuringly, and she focused her attention on them. "Is this real?" she asked softly.

"It could be," he nodded. He reached out, nudging her chin so that it raised her eyes to his. "Ziva, I meant what I just said. If this is what you want, then I'm all for it. We can do this."

"It is so soon," she argued weakly.

"If we were actually in a relationship, then yeah, that might be an issue," he agreed. "But we're best friends. You can't get closer than that."

"I suppose you are right," she nodded.

"It's not about time, Ziva," he pointed out. "It's about whether or not we're ready for this."

"Are we?" she asked hesitantly.

He nodded firmly, letting her see the sincerity in her eyes. "I think we can do this, yeah." She gave him a smile in return. "So, you and me against the world?" he asked.

She matched his growing smile. "It certainly seems that way."


End file.
